Eremos and Findhorn

EREMOS has been exploring spirituality in Australia for 30 years, through its retreats, its magazine, and its special lectures by visiting scholars. Founded to deepen and broaden Christian spirituality and learn from indigenous spiritual connections to the land, Eremos 'encourages people to experience the tension between certainty and belief, knowing and unknowing.' Kate Scholl, Fran MacKay and Walter Mason represent the diverse membership and speak of Eremos in their lives.

FINDHORN was founded 50 years ago as an experimental spiritual community in Scotland, and today it continues to thrive as one of the largest alternative communities in Britain. Starting life with a few people in a caravan park, 'the emerging "community" was an accidental offshoot of their committed dedication to God.' John Talbott, its former director now lives in Australia, planning to seed a Findhorn ecovillage Downunder.

Transcript

Rachael Kohn: Where do you go to develop your spiritual awareness? If I said Eremos and Findhorn, would you know what I'm talking about? While religions have their regular members, Eremos and Findhorn are two organisations that invite people to share and grow their spiritual awareness, quite apart from a creed or tradition. Hello, I'm Rachael Kohn, welcome to 80 years of exploring spirituality. This is The Spirit of Things, here on RN.

Findhorn is that legendary new-age community in Scotland that's lasted far longer and grown stronger than anyone expected. It's celebrating 50 years since its founding, and later in the program I'll be speaking to John Talbott, who headed up its eco-village for 24 years, before coming to Australia.

Now, Eremos is home-grown and one of the quiet achievers in Australia. Eremos' quarterly publication and retreats have been there for people asking deep questions about their spiritual life. It's marking 30 years, and three of its active members who are on the board are with me talk about its past, present and future: Kate Scholl, Frances MacKay and Walter Mason.

Well, you're all devotees and members of Eremos, which is a lovely word, a Greek word meaning 'wilderness', which in the Western tradition of course resonates with spiritual awakening. Is that what Eremos is about, the experience of awakening? Kate?

Kate Scholl: Well, I think that certainly people have had that experience who are within Eremos. They also come to us having had an awakening and wanting to explore that further, find like-minded people who also are interested in the spiritual journey and in looking deeper into things of life.

Rachael Kohn: Tell me about the origins of Eremos, Fran.

Frances MacKay: Well, it started in the early '80s with Bishop Bruce Wilson who had the vision for Eremos and he wanted to develop a spirituality or encourage a spirituality that would be deepening in people's lives, and spirituality for an Australian context, and he developed a team around him of people who helped him do that.

Rachael Kohn: Bishop Bruce Wilson is from the Anglican Church?

Frances MacKay: Yes, he is.

Rachael Kohn: And that was okay then, to be developing something like this within the Anglican tradition? Was it radical?

Frances MacKay: Well, he wasn't a bishop then. Yes, it was radical I think because it took place in the Sydney diocese. At the time I was in Armadale, northern New South Wales, and while it is a rich place culturally I was very grateful for the opportunity to have this contact with a spirituality that was deeper and wider than I was accessing there.

Rachael Kohn: And have you all been involved in the Anglican Church in some way, or has Eremos spread out to other denominations?

Kate Scholl: It wasn't founded within the Anglican Church, it just happened to be Anglicans who came together because Bruce was at the time at St George's Paddington and a group of people who were also interested in that exploration formed this group together, but it was always ecumenical in its focus. I'm not Anglican, I'm Roman Catholic, and I've worked in other churches as well.

Rachael Kohn: What about you, Walter?

Walter Mason: I spent most of my spiritual life in Buddhism, and in recent years I've become very interested in the connections between Buddhism and Christianity that are arising in the West. But it came in to Eremos through the Progoff journal workshop which Kate conducted, and it had an incredible impact on my life. This is a system of journalling which is deeply spiritual and encourages you to meditate and to look really, really deeply at your life. And I had that weekend, which was sponsored by Eremos, and it had such an impact on my life and changed me so much that I thought I'd better join this group because they are doing great things.

Rachael Kohn: And how long ago was that?

Walter Mason: That was the late '90s.

Rachael Kohn: I'm just wondering, you know, the connotation of wilderness that Eremos has, does it also relate to the people and the members who perhaps themselves felt they were out in the wilderness?

Kate Scholl: Absolutely, and I think that was what Fran was saying when she was talking about experience in the country and...

Frances MacKay: Yes, it's interesting to look back on those times and what the church was like in the '80s. In many churches or in many conservative churches there was an encouragement to be assured of certain certainties, as TS Eliot says. And some people were not comfortable with that and in fact felt marginalised and felt that if they were to belong to a particular community they had to hide their doubts and the questions that were really concerning them.

Rachael Kohn: So perhaps people who are disconnected from the church but not from the tradition?

Kate Scholl: It's a little bit of all of it, Rachael, it's people who are very connected and very involved in their churches and may have really nourishing churches but also find Eremos a wonderful adjunct for their spiritual journey, as well is people who have left church behind or some people who have never really been church people but they are interested in the spiritual journey, in that discovery, in that sense of going deeper.

I think one of the things that probably you can say about every Eremos member is really wanting to go beyond superficiality, that whatever it is, whether it's art, or if it's the land or nature or our relationship with each other, they are really seeking that exploration and that deeper meaning and they enjoy our magazine which invites people to really look at things, whatever the experiences, more deeply. It's not always about religious experience per se, and opens that up.

Rachael Kohn: So Walter, as a Buddhist what has been your interest in Christianity in particular? I know you mentioned the journalling practice, but are there other connections to Christianity that you have had in the past?

Walter Mason: Yes, I grew up a good Methodist boy, and my grandmother, who is gone now, she was a Bodhisattva as well as an extraordinary theologian. My father was an atheist, and I remember once I told my granny, 'I'm really upset about my dad going to hell.' And she said, 'Don't tell anyone else but God lets everyone go to heaven, even atheists.' The woman was brilliant.

I was always still interested in the church and in Christianity but I felt locked out. I'm a gay man, and I felt locked out of that world, and in the late '90s it was very much the case. But in Eremos I found people that didn't care about that and they also didn't really care about what I belonged to or who I was signed up to, it was about this conversation, it was about living your life deeply and caring about social issues and having the space to dialogue about that and talk about that.

Rachael Kohn: So Eremos allows people to reframe, re-imagine Christianity?

Frances MacKay: Indeed, and one of the lovely things about all this is that we can offer another way of looking at Christianity that isn't the fundamentalism that is often lampooned in the media.

Rachael Kohn: Well, certainly some of the people who you've invited as speakers are exemplary of people who have re-imagined Christianity, and I'm thinking of Dom Bede Griffiths and Charles Birch, the scientist, also a Christian, Veronica Brady, the feminist Catholic nun, Bishop John Shelby Spong, an Episcopalian biblical scholar who certainly has done a lot to shake up people's understanding of Jesus and the New Testament.

Frances MacKay: And I would add to that list David Tacey who has been a good friend to Eremos and in many ways reflects some of our concerns and helps us articulate I think this re-imagining of Christianity.

Rachael Kohn: How does he do that?

Frances MacKay: Through his books, and he has written for Eremos, and he has spoken at Eremos gatherings. When we talk about re-imagining, he has written a book on re-enchantment. It's about not just re-imagining Christianity but re-visioning I suppose the spiritual within a predominantly secular context. That's what I find very valuable.

Rachael Kohn: So for people in Eremos the secularised world does present some of its own challenges and problems?

Kate Scholl: It's certainly a reality that we live in, and we're not trying to say that the secular is bad, but there's this other dimension to life which is not just something Eremos believes, all religions believe that. But it's that sense that there is a forum where you can explore that sacred or that deeper meaning to things.

Rachael Kohn: Would any of you like to comment how these speakers, in addition to David Tacey, have left their mark on Eremos?

Kate Scholl: There was a conversation at our recent 30th anniversary retreat about some of those early speakers and how they were so much a part of helping Eremos form itself and such great supporters of Eremos. Morris West as well and Dom Bede Griffiths, they are folks that were already bridging between two worlds. For the Indian tradition, Dom Bede Griffiths, as well as being Christian, and he had bridged that gap, so he was bringing that together. And I think Veronica Brady does it so beautifully in literature and she breaks open the stories that Australian authors have written and presents them and sees the theological themes in them. So these people that have been partners with us along the way.

Rachael Kohn: And Walter, one of the people who has bridged the gap between Buddhism and Christianity has been a great influence on you, and that's Thich Nhat Hahn.

Walter Mason: Yes, very much so. He's written two books now about how Buddhists and Christians can meet and how so many Buddhists now come from a Christian background and how this globalised world has mixed us all up irreversibly. And it's so important that we can find that space where we can talk to each other and also have meaningful rituals together and meaningful discussions that are beyond the surface of 'this is what we do and this is what you do', the morning tea version of interfaith relations, but actually experiencing each other's spirituality. So it's a lived spirituality.

Rachael Kohn: Well, that leads me to ask how important it is to gather together. You recently had a retreat to celebrate 30 years of Eremos. How important are retreats to Eremos members?

Kate Scholl: Well, they are very much a part...they were part of the very beginning of Eremos, and I think that's really what helped to create this group of people that had the energy to carry it forward. There were small gatherings at first where they would introduce people to meditation and to just being quiet and contemplation, which in the '80s was a new concept, it isn't anymore, but it was a new concept in those days for a lot of folks. And retreats have continued to be very much a part of who we are and what we do. But we have members all across Australia who never attend any of our events and they are part of us when they open their magazine or they open their email and open up their PDF which is their magazine, and they share in that dialogue. That's what unites us all as members, is the magazine.

Rachael Kohn: And you're referring to the Eremos Quarterly. It often has a lot of poetry in it.

Frances MacKay: In addition to individual poems, I think there's a poetic flavour to the magazine. We encourage people to write articles that are narrative in style rather than abstract treatises on things, and we invite people to reflect on their lives or on issues that are important to them. And when you do that there is a poetic dimension that emerges from that.

Rachael Kohn: Kate, I want to ask you what your journey to Eremos was. I can hear you have an American accent.

Kate Scholl: Yes, I have been in Australia for 25 years, discovered Eremos within about 10 years of being here, and it's been a really solid community for me, being the good fortune of living in Sydney and being able to attend events as well. I was the executive director for eight years, and now I'm the chair of the council. For me it has been a place of exploration, of being able to stand outside of any particular religious tradition or dogma or belief and just explore with people. I've had various roles within churches where I've needed to stand in that place, but in Eremos, just being able to be in an exploratory community for a variety of workshops and retreats and gatherings that we've had has been very important to me.

Rachael Kohn: Has it replaced your Catholic affiliation?

Kate Scholl: Oh absolutely not, no, I'm still very much a part of the church. The church has got its place in the world, Eremos is a different place, it's a place of...kind of supplement to church, if you will. We are not trying to be a church. Gosh, leave that to the church people because it's hard work being a church. We don't have doctrines or beliefs or decide that these are the 12 points that we are going to agree upon. As Fran was saying about the magazine, it's a place where people can bring their different explorations, their longings and they're searchings and share that with each other and then get feedback from each other.

Rachael Kohn: And there's no conflict that arises between yourself and your existing tradition because of the ideas you entertain at Eremos? Is there any friction there?

Kate Scholl: Not from me personally. Catholicism is a huge tradition. If people want to see Catholicism in a very narrow pre-1950s church they can, but I am of course Vatican II Catholic and I believe in the wideness of the church that John XXIII introduced, to say let's open the church up, let the world in and let us in the world. And there's a wide tradition of contemplation and spirituality from the mystics, from St Francis of Assisi, to Teresa of Ávila, Julian of Norwich, this wide tradition of different ways of exploring and finding God. There isn't one way to find God.

Rachael Kohn: So I gather the members of Eremos come from all across the traditions?

Walter Mason: Absolutely, and from outside the tradition totally. A lot of people simply don't have a church home or don't want a church home, they are living in that post-church era in which they can't handle the politics of church, but they still want a place where they can share and feel spiritual. So it answers to a lot of people's needs.

Rachael Kohn: That's Walter Mason, board member of Eremos who's interested in spiritual travel. Check out his book, Destination Saigon. Frances MacKay is the editor of the Eremos Quarterly, and Kate Scholl is the chair of Eremos Council and was the executive director for eight years.

On The Spirit of Things we're exploring spirituality. Later, the incomparable Findhorn in Scotland comes downunder. You're listening to RN at abc.net.au/radionational.

When it comes to Australian spiritual experience, Eremos has Christian roots but it also extends to the tradition of the first Australians:

One of the things you all seem to be saying is it's so important to have that conversation with each other, to be sharing ideas, but also listening to ideas, and it makes me think of a concept that Father Eugene Stockton talked about at an Eremos meeting that I attended many years ago, and it was the Aboriginal notion of dadirri, 'listening'. Has that become a central concept for Eremos members?

Frances MacKay: Well, I can remember of times we've been reminded about it, through an article in Eremos, and through David Tacey in a recent event referring to dadirri as one of the blessings or gifts that the Indigenous community brings to us. Yes, so it is a very important idea to practice.

Kate Scholl: It's often brought up in our retreat days. People leading the retreats will speak about dadirri and just invite people into that space.

Rachael Kohn: And of course for David Tacey the link to Aboriginal Australia is very important, it's part of his own biography having lived out in Alice Springs. But how important is it to connect to Aboriginal spirituality and get it right?

Kate Scholl: We've had a number of articles and essays, retreats and talks in this area over the years. We are not Aboriginal people but there is a sense that they want to share the gift with us of being in this land and walking alongside them. Perhaps they can help us to see and to be here in the way that they walk and talk and live gently in this space rather than trying to conquer it or divide it. That sense of spiritual and sacred, to them it is one, there isn't…in my understanding of one of the aspects of Australian spirituality is that Unitarian perspective. So we have a lot to learn from that, and it is the context in which we are in this land, and that's one of the other parts as a North American, to come to live in Australia and to embrace this land as a place of my spiritual journey now, that it's a different relationship and there are new things that I can learn here and there's something about this particular land that has called me into a new journey.

Rachael Kohn: Well, it's certainly very different from being in a church or even in a Buddhist sangha. There is a strong emphasis on the land, on the earth, in a lot of the writings that I've seen in Eremos.

Walter Mason: Yes, and it's a part of it. There is also I think a call for contemplation as well which I think is answering such a strong need in our culture. I think so many people have an idea that they'd like to explore a contemplative dimension to their spiritual life, but there is no easy way into that, and I think that so many of the members of Eremos have that as part of their spiritual repertoire, an experience with contemplation, a sustained interest in it. And the whole sense of Eremos of the wilderness is about quietness, is about leaving behind busyness, and that's something that is so attractive to so many people.

Rachael Kohn: Gosh, that combination of dadirri, which is listening, and then the quietness of contemplation makes me think Eremos members never have loud and clashing arguments.

Kate Scholl: We actually don't have too many arguments, at least not in my experience. It's really quite incredible, because we don't have to try to agree. We don't have to pass this thing at synod that says, okay, everybody has to go this way. We're able to say 'you believe that, I believe that', somehow there's a space that we can share where we don't have to be afraid of each other and we don't have to be fearful of difference, we can somehow walk alongside each other.

Frances MacKay: In terms of the articles for Eremos we encourage a non-polemical approach. We encourage people to present passionately, if they like, their point of view, but in a way that is invitational to dialogue rather than in a debating type style. Sometimes I find myself needing to edit some of the articles on offer, to make them more invitational in style.

Rachael Kohn: So that's definitely a kind of credo of Eremos then, which is to maintain a harmonious dialogue of exchange and not browbeat each other into positions.

Frances MacKay: But not to be bland either, you know, a bit of passion is good, and accompanied by some humility in knowing that this is what my perspective is and my perspective is not the only one.

Kate Scholl: Yes, I'm not sure that it's so much about harmony but respect. If I can appreciate and other person's standpoint then perhaps I can just move a bit deeper into my own. I remember my very first theology course I had in my undergraduate was about standpoints, and that the deeper you are in your own tradition the more you are able to appreciate another person's tradition. When you are on the edges of your tradition it's kind of something you have to hold on to really tightly and protect. And you see that in the life of Thomas Merton as he grew and he was dialoguing with Buddhists, and he died in a country where he had been meeting with Buddhists and other religions. So then that sense of as people deepened their experience...and that is the challenge in Eremos, it's not just a nice feelgood kind of place, it is a challenging thing to travel the authentic path of finding one's true self and letting go of the illusions that we're living in and somehow finding the reality and the truth of life.

Rachael Kohn: Well, that quiet confidence and maturity within a tradition does generally come with age. So does that mean most of the people who are members of Eremos are mature and have been on this journey a long time? But I'm looking at you Walter, and of course you're young.

Walter Mason: Oh, you're very kind! I am the Gen-Xer. We do have some younger people though, with got some Gen-Yers as well. I think in fact that the Gen-Y crowd have a very Eremos frame of mind. Very few of them are interested in signing up to a particular tradition or to a particular set of dogmas. They are very interested in ecological issues, they are very interested in social justice. And I think that this tradition that has been established does have a future with younger people, maybe as they grow into it and as they get willing to pay for the membership, you know, because it is a whole generation of non-joiners out there, but this is something that is a very attractive thing I think to join because you're not being asked to make a pledge.

Rachael Kohn: Eremos is fully self-funding.

Kate Scholl: Yes, absolutely, we have to earn every penny we spend.

Walter Mason: And that's a struggle in this day and age, as it is for all groups that earn their money that way.

Rachael Kohn: Walter, you said that Gen-Y is actually quite comfortable with this notion of not being any one thing, but Gen-Y it seems to me is also very outcomes-oriented, and I wonder whether this idea of being on a journey all your life and not getting there, or perhaps the destination is the journey or the journey is the destination, however you want to put it, does that really fit with a younger generation that wants to know what brand it's wearing and where identity is so important?

Kate Scholl: I think it's a space for them to go beyond the superficial. They are very aware of how much superficiality...and everything is in soundbites and short and brief and you can't stay too long with something, and that gets wearisome. How many young people are going to Taizé these days, how many young people are going on pilgrimages? They want that place, they want to stay with something a bit longer. So I think we have something for everyone, for every age.

Rachael Kohn: Well, you've mentioned Taizé, that wonderful place in France that is run by monks were young people from around the world can come and be very involved in a musical monastic life, if I could put it that way, for a while. Do you think something like that could work here in Australia, Fran?

Frances MacKay: Well, there are Taizé groups, Taizé services more than groups using Taizé music. As for having a daughter house or something of Taizé in Australia, I don't know, it's a thought.

Rachael Kohn: Is Eremos connected to Taizé? I mean, are people who are involved in Taizé also involved in Eremos?

Kate Scholl: There would be certainly, there'd be a lot of people who are leading Taizé groups here in Australia or who are part of those groups who are members of Eremos. Our members are doing all kinds of things and they are networked in so many different other places. One of the things that we do is just connect with other groups through our website, through our events. We do a lot of cosponsoring of things, we don't just do it on our own. It's really about finding that place of commonality.

Rachael Kohn: And how many are you?

Kate Scholl: We have about 500 members, card-carrying paid-up folks, and then lot of other folks I think who read our magazine because the person they live with has it or it's on the table at the library where they work.

Rachael Kohn: Kate Scholl, you have Gen-Y aged children, have you been able to pass on the passion for Eremos to them?

Kate Scholl: My children were quite young, school-age, when I was executive director and taking the bookshop to different places, to different conferences, so they actually got early experience of being an Eremos person by selling books and just being part of events with me. They are both people who are interested in the spiritual journey, which I'm very pleased to see. It's not something that we forced on them, but they got that genetic structure it looks like.

Rachael Kohn: You mentioned before that members who pay the fee get their quarterly Eremos, and they can get it online, is that right?

Kate Scholl: That's right, yes, they can be an online subscriber rather than having a paper copy if they would like.

Rachael Kohn: So it looks like Eremos is marching into the future.

Walter Mason: Yes, we've got Twitter and a blog now, and I think part of what we want to do is introduce that idea of Eremos into the space of social media, because I think the only way you can beat the trolls is by drowning them out. We're trying to do that with a bit of our own quiet noise.

Rachael Kohn: Quiet noise, beautiful image. I want to ask all of you about something I read, Kate, in a review you wrote recently in Eremos, it was a book by Sue Monk Kidd, and she says, 'When it comes to religion today we tend to be long on butterflies and short on cocoons. Somehow we're going to have to learn that the deep things of God don't come suddenly.' Well, can I ask each of you what Eremos has been for you. Has it been a cocoon or a butterfly?

Frances MacKay: I think it has been both. And in the recent affirmations at the recent 30th anniversary retreat, generated by group members there, I noticed that movement towards home, that pull to home to find a place to belong, I guess that's the cocooning bit, and there is also the nudging to move into pilgrimage, to move forward and on. And I think both of those things are there. So I think for me Eremos has provided exciting companionship for the journey, stimulating articles to help me go beyond where I am. So it's both things and has accompanied me through some of the ups and downs of life.

Rachael Kohn: Kate, what has been more important for you? To be able to fly or to find that quiet solitude in the cocoon?

Kate Scholl: If you ask me to look at my life journey I would say that in my mid-20s I really had a strong cocoon period. So that was pre-Eremos. So I think that Eremos has probably been very much a butterfly place for me. And having had leadership positions in the organisations, I've been able to really delight in sharing this with other people and trying to help spread the word, gather folks together through our events or retreats, different things that we've done through the magazine, through the website. So I think probably more of a butterfly than a cocoon.

Walter Mason: For me it's probably initially a cocoon experience, it was that journey inward through journalling, through prayer, through meditation, through meeting people who wanted to escape the hullabaloo. But gradually it has also been a butterfly experience, a case of standing out and saying I don't think that I need to belong in any one place or the other, I'm quite proud to stand up and say that I'm somewhere in between. And Eremos offers me a space for that.

Rachael Kohn: And do you think Eremos itself has been in a cocoon stage and is it ready to really take off in brilliant colours?

Walter Mason: Let's hope so.

Kate Scholl: I think that the retreat was a real affirmation. There were about 50 people there from different states, mostly obviously Sydney, but quite a few people from country or regional areas in New South Wales, and there's a real sense that we still have a relevance. I think you go through these phases where you think are we done for, are we another one of those membership organisations or journals that's just finished? Because we've had different financial struggles, and also just trying to get enough people to do the things that need to be done. But I really think our relevance, we are yet to discover what it is in a lot of ways, and to remember the journeys and where people who have been part of Eremos have gone and transformed other places, we are very relevant and we are a partner with other groups and churches, we are not in any way in competition with them.

Rachael Kohn: Do you think that Eremos is actually uniquely Australian, or does it have connection to other kinds of foundations or organisations around the world?

Walter Mason: I think it's unique in perhaps that you don't have to make a statement when you are a member of Eremos saying that I'm a progressive or I'm a conservative or I'm a Buddhist or I'm a Christian, you don't need to make that stance because what we're dealing with is a mystery, we're all sitting with that mystery and dealing with it in the ways that we choose. And I think that's quite unique because I do see there are movements towards contemplative traditions or towards more intellectual understandings of religion, but so often they are holding up a placard saying that 'I am this' and 'this is what this group represents', and Eremos isn't about that. Eremos is about saying 'I'm dealing with all sorts of questions about my spiritual life', that's what it's about.

Rachael Kohn: Thirty years of Eremos, which you can find a link to by going to the Spirit of Things website at abc.net.au/radionational and scroll down to the program. Learn all about my guests there too; Kate Scholl, Frances MacKay and Walter Mason.

You're listening to RN, and this is Mike Scott, of The Waterboys, a Findhorn supporter and resident at the community in the mid 1990s. From his solo album Still Burning, much of it recorded at Findhorn, this is 'Open'.

[Music: 'Open', Mike Scott, Still Burning]

Findhorn: lovely name, isn't it? A part of Scotland that became famous because it was the mother of all new-age experiments. But Findhorn, which celebrates 50 years, didn't go up in flames, real or metaphorical, like so many others in the '70s and '80s. In fact, it's done the opposite: not only was its founder Eileen Caddy awarded an MBE for her contribution to spiritual inquiry, but its eco-village won the UN Habitat Best Practice Designation in 1998, and is renowned as having the smallest ecological footprint ever measured in the developed world. Much of that is owed to John Talbott who was the director of the eco-village and has now relocated to Sydney.

John Talbott, welcome to The Spirit of Things.

John Talbott: Thank you, it's great to be here.

Rachael Kohn: Findhorn has become something of a legend or an archetype of the alternative living community, and I think we ought to locate it first.

John Talbott: It is in the far north of Scotland, just about 25 miles east of Inverness, which is the capital of the Highlands. It's actually not in the mountains, it's right on the coast but it's between the ocean, the Moray Firth, and the Highlands.

Rachael Kohn: Pretty blustery and cold up there. Why such a remote place for the idyllic Shangri-La of the 1970s?

John Talbott: Well, people talk about Findhorn being an intentional community, but really when you look at the roots of it and how it started it was very unintentional. There were a lot better places that could have been chosen, certainly from a climate point of view. The founders, Peter and Eileen Caddy, and their colleague Dorothy Maclean, who is Canadian, they had been working in Forres, a little market town near Findhorn, running a hotel called the Cluny Hill Hotel. And they lost their job, this is back in the early '60s, and they couldn't find employment, and they were practising listening to their inner guidance, and their inner guidance led them to the Findhorn Bay Caravan Park where they thought they would be for a week or two until they were told to move on. But as it turned out they stayed.

Rachael Kohn: These inner voices, I've read that Eileen Caddy heard the Christ within, that she also had some affiliation with moral rearmament movement as well as perhaps some theosophy, and then there was the usual bit of romantic scandal, the original couple split and so forth. This sounds like typical 1970s commune living.

John Talbott: It was a bit typical 1970s, only it was the 1950s and that was what was really interesting. The three founders were all very much on a spiritual journey and had a teacher called Sheena who Peter had been married to, but when Peter said, 'I really want to go on the spiritual path and develop myself as much as I can,' she turned to him and said, 'Well, the marriage is over then,' even though he was still very much in love, but it was part of his path and she as his teacher decided that that was the end of their marriage. And then Eileen was part of that same group of students, and they subsequently fell in love and became a couple and had children together. Yes, it was very much the kind of commune style of the '70s but 20 years earlier.

Rachael Kohn: It's most unusual for any of those experimental communities to last longer than a generation. So how do you think Findhorn did it?

John Talbott: I suppose the founders, if you go back to what they did and what they were working with, they spent all of their free time in meditation, in prayer, really going within to try to find that inner guidance, and I think that certainly that is one of the fundamental founding principles, you might say, of Findhorn is that God is within and that it's up to each of us to try to access that divine nature, rather than the ego-driven or the base self or the self-aggrandising nature of the ego or the mind, but to go beyond that to the higher self or the place where there is more divine wisdom inside. And that was really what the founders were working on.

And all the people who were drawn to the community in the early days, and it was really literally a handful for the first five or six years, were also on that same quest and resonated with what they were doing. So those foundations went quite deep into the community itself and the practice, so it was really all about going within and then trying to express that in your outer work, in your daily life.

Rachael Kohn: Were the original members employed outside or did they have to make their community entirely self-sustaining?

John Talbott: It was never really self-sustaining in that sense of trying to isolate from the outside world, but at the same time Peter, who was a very capable ex-officer in the RAF, a military man, he just could not get a job. And the guidance came from Eileen that he was to start a garden so that they could supplement their meagre dole allowance that they got from the government with their own vegetables. At the same time Dorothy began to get…her inner guidance was helping her with the garden. Actually none of them were gardeners, they didn't know how to grow plants, but she was getting these messages from what she called the spirit of the plants, or the 'devas' was the word that she chose, and it was very practical advice; you know, more compost, a bit of fertiliser, it was all organic of course. But that led to the phenomena of very large vegetables in very poor soil conditions, which of course is one of the things that Findhorn is known for.

Rachael Kohn: Yes, the giant cabbages.

John Talbott: Correct.

Rachael Kohn: John, what drew you to Findhorn?

John Talbott: I was a young engineer, I had graduated from university and I was working for a major manufacturing plant building oil tankers and railroad cars, and it was a great education but at the same time I began to really quest for something deeper. And certainly as a young 20-something out of university, looking ahead to the next 40 years, is this going to be my path in a big factory building oil tankers. It was, like, hmm, I hope there is something else.

So I began to look into meditation, I joined some dream groups, kind of on the spiritual path looking for my own deeper meaning. It was in that process that they came across a book called The Magic of Findhorn by Paul Hawken, who is now a very famous economist, but that was his first book based on the two years he lived there. I read that and thought, oh my gosh, I've got to go see this place.

Rachael Kohn: And that was when?

John Talbott: 1978.

Rachael Kohn: And you stayed for 24 years. That's a long commitment.

John Talbott: Yes, I visited a couple of times, I visited for a couple of months and then I went home and came back again. And then in 1980 I moved there. I knew it was the right thing, that I just had to do it. In some way it was like a calling, like you get religious clerics that talk about being called, and it just felt like this was waiting for me and what I'd be looking for, even though I hadn't really had an idea what I was looking for.

Rachael Kohn: Well, what was your life like? What would have been a typical week or month at Findhorn?

John Talbott: When I first joined the community in 1980 we were all volunteers, basically working for our board and lodging, getting £5 a week if you were a staff member. It was great. We worked in different departments, there was the kitchen, the gardens, the maintenance department, building, lots of different areas that you could work in. The community was probably about 250 people, and all of the income came from running workshops and guest programs. So there were probably 5,000 residential visitors every year doing one-week courses or three-month courses. Not so many day visitors as there are now, but back in those days it was more residential, and it was very much an inward-looking community, so we didn't have much connection with the Scottish community, our local community around us.

Rachael Kohn: Well, you're American.

John Talbott: And I'm American and there were many other Americans and other nationalities. In fact I think there was about 25 or 30 countries represented in that membership of Findhorn. That led to a very interesting relationship with the Home Office. In those days you had to have a Visa if you weren't in a European country, and we had so many people coming from overseas that we developed a special relationship with the Home Office and they looked into us and kind of investigated and came up with our own category called Harmless Eccentrics.

Rachael Kohn: Oh my goodness!

John Talbott: And it made it very easy to people to get visas and stay there for a long time.

Rachael Kohn: So you have HE after your name, 'John Talbott HE'?

John Talbott: I suppose I could have that, yes.

Rachael Kohn: It certainly sounds like Findhorn developed into quite a complex community. It was known for the arts, there was a theatre there, I think music was very big, there was pottery, there was a bakery, all these different organisations and businesses. How does a complex and obviously commercially engaged community manage itself as a spiritual community?

John Talbott: Great question. It's a mystery sometimes for those of us who live there, but at the same time I think there was a set of principles that we believed in, and I think...I mentioned one of the early ones of really seeking within to find our own sense of what is right or what is right for us and to express that in our daily life. So when conflicts come up, as they will anywhere there are human beings, there is also a commitment to somehow go deeper and to find out what is the learning in this experience. And I think in the big conflicts that arose, sometimes there were issues within the community that were quite divisive, I would say most times the actual disagreement goes away. It was usually about something else.

Rachael Kohn: Well, for example, if you had visiting teachers coming in, I know Stanislav Grof had a particular method of hyperventilation that created a bit of a problem at Findhorn because it could be dangerous to your health. So how does Findhorn then deal with something like that?

John Talbott: That's an interesting one because it was quite a divisive issue. There were some people who were very committed to it and really felt that they were getting tremendous insight through that process, but there were others who weren't interested and who also felt it was quite damaging. There was a fear of a psychotic break. So there was a lot of unknowns, there was a lot of fear, and I think in the end we decided not to continue with that particular form of practice, simply because there was a risk not only to people's health but also to the reputation, and it seemed like it was a drug-induced state to some people, and there was a lot of press about it at the time. But that would have been one of the more divisive issues, because there was certainly a very dedicated group of people who wanted to continue then.

Rachael Kohn: Well, Findhorn would have been a magnet for a whole range of gurus and spiritual teachers. Who were some of the other great stars of the spiritual world who came to Findhorn when you were there?

John Talbott: Well, we had Baker Roshi, we had Ram Dass…I never really followed the gurus, and I can maybe add a little bit of my story into this because after I arrived there was some talk about building an eco-village. So you have to understand, Findhorn was a caravan park, here we were in the North of Scotland and meditating and trying to live in harmony with nature and co-create with nature, and yet the reality of our living situation was very far from living in harmony. And in the early '80s there was a sense of we need a new mission or what the next expression of this spirit of Findhorn, you might say.

And the eco-village came into the picture of living more ecologically, more sustainably through the built environment. So how do you take that spiritual impulse and translate it into bricks and mortar and timber and windmills and so on. And so that became my passion, and I was the director of the eco-village there for over 20 years, the founder director.

And I think we were transitioning from a very small group, almost extended family, to a small community, then a larger community, and now we're talking about transitioning into a village in the late '80s, early '90s. And so people were starting to stay longer, they were having families, they needed more permanent accommodation, and I think there was a recognition that to really be sustainable the community had to create more permanent structures and better accommodation for members and guests.

Rachael Kohn: I imagine that the idea of an eco-village would have attracted a lot of people involved in the environmental movement, and also eco-spirituality.

John Talbott: Yes, there were certainly a lot of people drawn for the more eco-philosophy, if you like, and that was always a bit of a tension because first and foremost the members of Findhorn felt they were a spiritual community. In some ways there is a hairshirt kind of concept that are living in a caravan, roughing it and meditating, that's the way to really get far on the spiritual path, but I don't think it needs to be that way, and I think that certainly we've come to believe that it's not as simple as that.

And we had a lot of exchanges with the Centre for Alternative Technology in Wales who were really pioneers in ecological building and renewable energy, and they were looking, and many of the people who lived there were looking for a more of a spiritual approach, and Findhorn was needing more of their technical expertise, so we had a great exchange for many years.

Rachael Kohn: John Talbott is from Washington State originally, joined Findhorn in the '80s and is now in Australia spreading its message of sustainable living with a spiritual foundation. This is The Spirit of Things on RN, on air and online.

Well, what is the spiritual approach behind the Findhorn eco-village? Because I noticed now there are a lot of real estate developments that are calling themselves eco-this and eco-that, and it's hard to know how genuine these developments are. So what makes Findhorn a kind of genuine eco-village?

John Talbott: I guess our approach or Findhorn's approach was it was co-creation with nature, and that was a very fundamental part of the founding of the community and that goes back to the big vegetables in the garden and this idea that nature is alive and sentient, there is a consciousness. It's not as if you're going to go and talk to a tree or have a conversation with a flower, but it's more that there is an intelligence or a sentience within the biosphere, within Gaia, the living Earth, and that we needed to find a new model that we work with those forces or intelligence to co-create our settlements and the way that humans interact with nature.

Rachael Kohn: Are there still inner voices directing these developments?

John Talbott: Well, I think everybody is left to do it themselves, and Eileen did in the early days receive what she called her guidance for the community. But very early on, I think it was 1971, she was also told it's no longer appropriate to share this with the community, people have to go within and get their own guidance, it's not for her to become the high priestess.

Rachael Kohn: But what if you all have different voices and they are clamouring and they don't agree, what do you do?

John Talbott: That happens a lot, I have to tell you. But I think that's part of trying it out. So when you get a sense, an intuition...Peter never heard voices, he got a real strong sense of an intuition about what he needed to do, so everybody has a different way of attuning to that in a voice or that inner guidance. You know, some people do hear voices, some people don't, it's a feeling or it's more of an impression. But it's up to each of us to find out what that is, and then you test it out, then you go try it out, and that's when you might bump into things where people have other ideas or their guidance was something different. That's how we learn and that's how we find out what is real and what is not real, what's my ego talking and what's really something coming from my soul or my higher self, you might say.

Rachael Kohn: Does that mean that building an eco-village, as you are now doing in Australia, in Narara, takes a much longer time?

John Talbott: At Findhorn we had a very different situation because we had a community already existing and living on the site, so we organically developed the community and we have the luxury of time in many ways to think about it, to dream into, to walk around the site and attune to where do we...you know, we built a nature sanctuary, a meditation room, the first building we did back in the mid-'80s. We had a big group traipsing around trying to find the right spot, you know they were all attuning, closing eyes, and then we'd come out and share, you know, what do you feel about this...and eventually we found the right place. It took a long time but it was great fun and it also gave us that sense of confidence that we were doing it in the right place and in the right spirit in terms of what does nature want or how can we enhance and work with nature and co-create rather than just get the human concept and plonk it down.

Rachael Kohn: Well, what is the concept of the eco-village that you're planning here? I've looked at the website, and there are already a number of people who signed up or said that they intend to be part of this community. They are an impressive bunch of people, many of them with some professional abilities as well.

John Talbott: Absolutely, it's an amazing group of people and I feel very privileged to be able to work with them now. The eco-village here that we're talking about is very much on the environmental, the ecological, the social and the economic, so those three fundamental pieces, and I would say that there's probably a spiritual component, but we haven't really identified how that will be expressed or how we talk about it.

Rachael Kohn: So it hasn't been at the forefront?

John Talbott: No, it's been about an eco-village that is environmentally, socially, economically sustainable, those three principles. And I don't think…bringing in a spiritual dimension doesn't necessarily slow things down, but working with a group in consensus, it does take a little bit more time than you would if you had a small board of directors who was just deciding everything in a closed room. But this is a cooperative structure and people have joined the corporative to be part of the village and are part of the decision-making. So we want to include people. There is a greater sense of ownership, a greater sense of responsibility and shared responsibility, so it isn't just a small group that is taking responsibility for this. In fact it will be several hundred probably by the time we're done.

Rachael Kohn: Well, John Talbott, far away from Findhorn, you've been in Australia nine years, where do you get your spiritual sustenance?

John Talbott: The lesson is supposed to be that you get it wherever you are. I have to say it's been a struggle, certainly, leaving Findhorn. I didn't think I was leaving, we came out with my wife is from the eastern suburbs for a year and then here we are, nine years later. It is a little bit similar...I went to Findhorn thinking I was only going to stay a year and I stayed for 24.

Rachael Kohn: Another unintentional whatever.

John Talbott: Yes, exactly. But I certainly go back regularly and we still have a house. I built a whiskey barrel house while I was there at Findhorn out of an old whiskey vat. It's a really big whisky vat, and the most common question I get asked is, 'Was at full when you got it?' No, it wasn't, sadly.

Rachael Kohn: Do the vapours still intoxicate?

John Talbott: I don't know about intoxicate, but it smells wonderful, especially when you cut the wood and it's got 60 or 70 years of the spirits within it. We got six of them all together and we've built a little cluster of whiskey barrel houses, and they were called spirit receivers in the distillery industry because it's where they blended the spirits, and so we thought that was very cosmic of course and quite appropriate.

Rachael Kohn: Very appropriate indeed. I must visit you there. Thank you so much for coming on to The Spirit of Things, it's been a delight.

John Talbott: It's a pleasure.

Rachael Kohn: John Talbott was the director of the Findhorn eco-village for 24 years, and if you go to the Spirit of Things website you'll find a link to the new eco-village project in Narara, New South Wales, and while you're there download the audio at abc.net.au/radionational.

That's the program, 80 years exploring spirituality. The Spirit of Things is produced by me and Geoff Wood, with sound engineering by Timothy Nicastri.

Don't forget that the adventuresome spirit continues next week, with me Rachael Kohn, right here on RN.

Guests

Kate Scholl

Kate Scholl is currently the chair of the Eremos Council and was executive director of Eremos for 8 years. Born in the USA, she emigrated to Australia in 1987 when she married Alex. They have 2 adult children. She has worked in the areas of theological education, management and administration, adult formation and education, and volunteer engagement. Eremos has nurtured her passion for writing, the spiritual search, and community building over the many years of her involvement. Kate, who is Catholic, has degrees in theology and pastoral ministry, and graduate studies in management.

Frances MacKay

Dr Frances MacKay, based in Canberra, is Editor of Eremos Quarterly Magazine and is a member of Eremos Council. She has been involved in the practice of spiritual direction for14 years, and was formerly a secondary and tertiary teacher, as well as counsellor in community health, schools and private practice.

Walter Mason

Walter Mason is a member of Eremos Council, was raised as a Methodist, but describes himself as between Christian and Buddhist. He is the author of Destination Saigon (2010) and is currently a part of the University of Western Sydney’s prestigious Writing & Society Research Unit, where he is pursuing a PhD on the history of self-help books in Australia.

John Talbott

Former Director of the Findhorn Ecovillage (Scotland) for 24 years, now residing in Sydney and working to establish an Ecovillage at Narara, NSW.

Credits

Comments (3)

David R Allen :

27 Nov 2012 1:57:47pm

Listening to the article about Eremos. As an atheist, this is the template for world religion. Not involved in decision making. Concerned just with spirituality. Words like invitation. Encouragement. Not interested in invading countries or killing. It passes the test of a good religion, that it should be practiced by consenting adults in private.

Peter Forster :

28 Nov 2012 9:35:01pm

Marijke Wilhelmus and I were long-term members of the Findhorn community and were there for its 30th birthday. Shortly after its 40th birthday we published an article about change processes in the community that also featured John Talbott. Anyone interested can read or download the paper at http://www.academia.edu/1359772/The_role_of_individuals_in_community_change_within_the_Findhorn_intentional_community

Maggie Attard :

29 Nov 2012 4:35:10pm

Dear Rachael,Thank you for bringing us the discussion about the 'Eremos' and 'Findhorn' communities. They are new to myself, but I know that Walter Mason is a well known published author.I am always encouraged, when learning of opportunities to explore and broaden our understanding of Spirituality.It is good to know that our Indigenous peoples' own sense of the sacred is also acknowledged and celebrated...Living in a secular society we are forunate in being able to have an eclectic approach to religion and spirituality. And hopefully a more inclusive view of all. 'The Spirit of Things' is always inspirational or thought provoking.It is a programme that I rarely miss, since having first discovered RN in the early nineties Best Wishes, Maggie Attard.